3 Great Things, 3 Off Things, and the Best Thing about The Last of Us

If you follow video games at all, you must have heard about Naughty Dog’s most recent title, The Last of Us, which is shattering records in both the critical acclaim and sales aspects. The Last of Us is a hyper realistic survival game set in an post-apocalyptic world, following an unlikely pair, Joel, an old and grizzled man, and Ellie, a young girl. Together they go on a journey across country trying to find the key to humanity, or at least survive it.

This game is definitely one of the top contenders for the title, ‘Game of the Year’. As ambiguous and generic as giving that title to any game may seem, The Last of Us had it all. Great story, compelling action, beautiful graphics, and emotional depth. We’re not going to go into story too much here as a matter of fact, we’re not going to talk much about any spoilers at all. This is simply a review of the amazing things that happen in the game and some of the not so great [but kinda negligible] things worth commenting on.

I haven’t tried the multiplayer yet, so if you have any comments on that, let me know in the comments below in addition to any other comments you might have about the game in general.

The 3 Great Things

The first part of this list includes three amazing parts I loved about the game. In general it sums up what I found to be its strongest attributes and overall included some of my favorite features of the game.

The Real, Dark, and Depressing Atmosphere

The world is currently a crap hole in The Last of Us’s setting. Food rations are tough, there is little sign of hope, and there are infected creatures around every corner. The story delivers this sense of hopelessness and a constant uphill battle the entire way. You’re constantly fighting on low ammunition, most of the storyline is about running away from things, and you’re hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned in most encounters. Essentially, The Last of Us constantly reminds you that you’re fighting for survival.

The crafting aspect of the game also constantly reminds you that you must make a decision in the best way to survive. You’re given the choice to either making a health kit for healing or using those same materials to make a Molotov cocktail to fight enemies. Do you chose the ability to kill enemies at the cost of low health or do you increase your health to increase your chance at surviving the same enemies? Decisions like these keep the game engaging and remind you that you have a limited amount of supplies at all times.

Naturally, such a hopeless world brings out the worst in people. Some of these people you meet and you can’t help but feel sorry for them when they tell you they’ve been through worse than you. And whether they channel that rage at you or themselves, you get a sense of the limits of humanity in situations such as these. That being said, there are silver linings to all dark clouds. The game isn’t always such a Debbie Downer the entire campaign, there are small moments of humor that allow breaks during the darkest moments of the game that help the balance between downright depressing and manageably dark.

Breath Stopping Action

The Last of Us thrives on the high intensity action sequences. Primarily using a Splinter Cell/Metal Gear Solid type gameplay where sneaking around is probably the best method of beating encounters, the game heavily relies on the patience of the player. Although those seeking more thrill, there is always the option of going out guns blazing. This however is not recommended given the fact that you’re usually going into each encounter with a total of fifteen bullets for all four of five of your guns.

This mechanic is what makes The Last of Us incredibly fun. Often, you’re forced to save your ammunition for these stealth sequences because the game often forces you expend all your ammo in moments where you’ve got to defend someone or they all rush in a room. Both types of encounters are high intensity in their own and unique way.

The gruesomeness of game overs and deaths are also wince-inducing, making each loss at a particular encounter difficult to watch. If you’re caught by one of the infected or beaten to death by a bandit, the cut-scene of your death isn’t pretty. My face has been ripped open, I’ve been stabbed in the back, choked to death, and have had my throat sliced open on glass. Each loss makes it difficult to watch, forcing you to perform slightly better so that you don’t get that gruesome cut-scene once again.

This Game is Absolutely One of the Most Beautiful Games I’ve Ever Played

Developer Naughty Dog really pulled out all the stops for this game. Easily one of most beautiful games I’ve ever played, they nailed the concept of a post-apocalyptic world. What’s really great about this is that they didn’t just go for the sand-filled, smokey, and gray, but they went for a greener, ‘nature takes everything back eventually’, type of world, which makes for beautiful scenery.

In addition to that, I’ve never seen voice acting so clear, and the way they cast Joel and Ellie was simply amazing. Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker did an amazing job relaying the key emotions in important moments where tone defined the entire scene. And these days, mocap costumes come close to capturing natural movements of not just the body, but the faces as well.

Technically, there is negligible difference between cut-scene and gameplay. And you’re simply floored by the first time you’re given control and the amount of detail and how sharp the graphics are compared to the cut-scene before it. The number of particles such as dust, fireflies, embers, and gnats are tiny, but add a layer of depth and beauty to the watchful eye. There are little messages for those who are fully engaged that help build the background of the universe whether it be writing on the wall or the positions of dead bodies in bathtubs. It’s easy to tell the developers put a lot of time in making each scenery you walk through unique.

The 3 Off Things

The three off things section isn’t meant to be too negative of a section. In all honesty, I found little I incredibly disliked about this game, though there were a few things I would absolutely change/modify if I was given the chance. Though does changing a few minor things make a near perfect game closer to perfection? Not likely, though it certainly can’t hurt to still point them out.

Derpy AI/Game Exploitation

As you play The Last of Us, you meet ‘friendly’ AI along the way in addition to all the AI you maim, stab, shoot, burn, explode and bash. Not all AI are perfect, and sometimes my allies would go and expose themselves to the entire enemy team and a firefight I wanted to avoid would occur. This can be frustrating, especially during times when incredibly difficult enemies occur and there is a need to take them out silently first.

Another issue I had was that this AI derpiness (real internet slang) could easily be taken advantage of. Especially for the enemies. A lot of the time, the game gave large environments to perform your predator/stealth game. A lot of the time, I chose a bottle neck point and holed up in one corner of the level after miniature wave after wave tried to kill me in the same exact last manner as the wave before them. In real scenarios, they should’ve all gathered at once and tried to flush me out or throw a Molotov cocktail of their own in where I was. Instead, I would kill four guys, alert four more guys to come closer to me, and kill that next four the same exact way until I widdled down a twenty four man strong group to nothing. It was exploitations like that made me break out of the terror the game tries to create in favor of a cheesy, although sometimes necessary means of completing an encounter.

Scavenging Paranoia Made Me Miss Conversation Windows

A large part of the game is how you spend time scavenging for parts, ammo, and crafting material in the most obscure places. While this happens, you’re often forced to leave the main group in order to check down an alley as the story technically progresses without you. Similar instances occur when you’re searching a house and your friendly AI are talking amongst themselves downstairs and they ask you a question that you can answer, but you’re so absorbed in checking the desk in the master living room, you ultimately miss out on the conversation. Instances like these make me feel as though I missed out on a small, but rewarding part of the game. In this kind of game where character development is a large part of the reward, missing something like this breaks you out of the immersion.

Glitches

People have often discussed the glitching problem in The Last of Us, and there are countless videos out there documenting some of the more game breaking ones. In truth, I’ve only discovered two, only one of which made me unfairly die [which in some people’s opinion, is enough to rage on Youtube about, but I like to think I’m actually sane, so I let it go]. The first glitch was when I was trying to climb a flight of stairs and I ended up sinking through the floor and I ultimately died when a bandit saw me and shot me to death. That was the game breaking one that initially annoyed me, but that was the last time it had ever happened. The other one was very tiny, and it was just a hair error where Ellie’s ponytail exploded on the screen for about a second. Like I said, none of which enough for me to rage quit, but worth nothing. [PSA: There is no game that exists without glitches, no use in raging over seeing one.]

The Absolute Greatest Thing About this Game: Emotional Investment

The Last of Us is an incredibly emotional game. And this is why I think it’s the best part of the game. From the opening cutscene to the final moments of the game, you can’t deny the goosebumps, winces, tears, and anger that you will feel throughout the game. The way they develop Joel and Ellie as you progress through trial after trial really creates a deep bond not only between the two main characters but you as well.

Joel is the main character you take control of and you learn about his past in the brutalist way possible and you can’t question what hells he has overcome to make it to the place he has become today. You don’t question his many ways of killing a single thing, because you believe that his history has made him the proficient killer he has become and many people now know him as. And as you play him, you learn more about his motives and grow with him as he comes to realize the more important things in life.

That being said, Ellie on the other hand, is a fairly naïve girl, who initially can’t even be trusted with a weapon, but that doesn’t stop her from being an incredibly helpful and smart AI (apart from the other derpy AI). More than once, she’s come to my rescue without my call, whether it be her jumping on an assailaint’s back and stabbing him, or throwing bricks at an infected to stop them just long enough for me to get out of his grab/instakill range. Every time Ellie does something like that, I simply turn to her and say thank you in real life, even though she can’t hear me. Although I’m supposed to be protecting her, sometimes I think who’s really doing the protecting.

In the game, you take the point of view of multiple characters, creating a subtle, but necessary different take on how you perceive characters. Not only that, but you get attached to characters, especially the ones you’ve played with. You bled with them, you killed with them, and you lost with them. Making the journey they go through your journey too.

And by the time you get the ending, you won’t know exactly what you’re supposed to feel, but that’s okay. If you were as lost as I was, then the game did exactly what it was supposed to do: make you care. This is something many games don’t really do on emotional levels. Sure Skyrim can make care about grinding my blacksmithing up, or Minecraft can make me care about lining up the torching perfectly to cure my ADD, but many games can’t hold their own this hard on an emotional level. I certainly don’t think I’ll play a game with this perfect balance of action, technical brilliance, and emotion. Which is why The Last of Us is definitely on my radar as “Game of the Year”.

If you have a PS3, I highly recommend you pick up the game in order to experience a game unlike any other.